O H M Y G O O D N E S S !!!
O H M Y G O O D N E S S
(Sorry! I can’t help jumping up and down!)
Do you know what time it is???
It’s time to announce the finalists for
The First Ever Pretty–Much–World–Famous Illustration Contest!!!
 |
But first I have to say that I was thrilled with what a great turn out we got for a first-ever contest! I was hoping we’d get 10, and really hoping we’d get 20, so how completely wonderful that we got 35 entries!!!
And they were all so beautiful and creative and well done!
There were 8 fabulous stories for the illustrators to choose from – stories that won the March Madness Writing Contest last month. Happily, every single story inspired at least 2 illustrators, so all the stories were represented. The entries broke down as follows:
1. The Three Wiggly Worms Bluff by Wendy Greenley – 6 illustrations
2. Goldilockup by Mike Allegra – 5 illustrations
3. Goldibawks And The Three Pairs by Dawn Young – 2 illustrations
4. The Sweetie Witch by Pen Avey – 4 illustrations
5. The Princess And The Stinky Cheese by Lauri Meyers – 9 illustrations
6. Mongoose’s Holi Party by Darshana Khiani – 2 illustrations
7. The “Princess” And The Pete by Jennifer Caritas – 3 illustrations
8. The Jackrabbit Who Cried Gila Monster by Elliah Terry – 4 illustrations
So a very nice spread!
And now, a few words from our illustrious judges, award-winning author/illustrators Iza Trapani and Lisa Thiesing:
Iza said, “Thank you everyone for the wonderful entries! Lisa and I enjoyed them and regret that we could only pick 6 finalists. You all did a great job. Keep up the good work!”
Lisa said, “We were so impressed with everyone’s enthusiasm and how much effort you all put in!”
I say, many thanks to our wonderful judges for donating their time and expertise to pore over all these entries, carefully weighing the merits of each until they could reach a consensus as to which ones should qualify for the finals. Many thanks as well to all the very talented illustrators who took the time and care to produce such beautiful book covers for these original stories! We have enjoyed your work so much, and it’s been different and fun to experience a competition for illustration instead of writing!
Please consider each of the following finalists carefully and vote for the one you think you’d be most likely to pluck off a bookshelf 🙂 Remember that the contest rules specifically asked for art only. Some artists chose to include the title/author/illustrator anyway, but covers which do not show title/author/illustrator should not be penalized in your judgment.
Although there’s no real way to keep these anonymous, I will show the pictures only, no artist names for now (they will all be shown when I announce the winners on Monday May 5.) I encourage you to share this post with your tribe – the more views these talented illustrators get the better – but I ask that you please not try to influence the vote by saying “Vote for #3!” or whatever. Let’s let these gorgeous book covers speak for themselves. It’s not supposed to be a contest about who has the most FB friends or whatnot. Thank you all for playing fair. Because many of the finalists are for the same stories, I have identified them with little notes in parentheses to help you remember which is which on the voting poll.
And now, without further ado, I am pleased to present the finalists! Each cover is accompanied by a few words from the judges 🙂
#1. Cover for The “Princess” And The Pete
 |
| Cover image for The “Princess” And The Pete |
Judges comments: This is a cool image and the illustrator has left plenty of space for a great type design.
# 2. Cover image for Goldilockup (green border)
 |
| Cover image for Goldilockup |
Judges comments: The girl is sweet and nicely drawn. The details and design elements were carefully thought out.
#3 Cover image for Goldilockup (black border)
 |
| Cover image for Goldilockup |
Judges comments: This illustration is very well done. It is a humorous, strong, eye-catching image. It would be very appealing to a lot of young readers.
#4. Cover image for The Jackrabbit Who Cried Gila Monster (black background)
 |
| Cover image for The Jackrabbit Who Cried Gila Monster |
Judges comments: The character is funny, quirky, interesting and we wonder what he’s thinking. We would want to read this book. The whole design is great.
#5. Cover image for The Jackrabbit Who Cried Gila Monster (3 beds)
 |
| Cover image for The Jackrabbit Who Cried Gila Monster |
Judges comments: The bunny is cute, with an especially nice face. The picture makes us curious about the story.
#6. Cover image for Goldilockup (bears pointing thru bars)
Judges comments: We thought this cover was a good drawing with a nice composition and colors. We could see it standing out on the Barnes & Noble book wall.
Ready, set, VOTE!
Please vote for your favorite by Sunday May 4 at 5PM EDT!
Boy oh boy is it going to be hard to wait until Monday to find out how these finalists finish up!
Have a great weekend, everyone! 🙂
Susanna Leonard Hill 
They really are incredible, aren't they, Tina? Thanks for voting!
Thanks for voting, Erik! We're going to need every vote we can get, I'm sure!
The finalists are amazing, Heather, but so were all the entires, including yours!
Thanks for trying to choose 🙂 And for your wonderful story that inspired many of the entries!
Thanks for voting, Yvonne! And if we do this again, I hope you'll have time to enter. I'd love to see an illustration from you! 🙂
I'm so glad you enjoyed the contest, Laura! We certainly all enjoyed your 2 wonderful entries! It has been really fun. I hope we'll be able to do it again at some point. I'm very grateful for the community we have here – it is something special!
Thank you for making a difficult decision, Jill! I know how hard it was!
It's been such a pleasure running this contest, Vivian. So much fun to see all this talent, and meet some new people! If we do it again, I hope you'll give it a spin 🙂
They really are, aren't they, Maria? It's so hard to have to choose just one!
It's been my pleasure, Cathy! Thank YOU for your gorgeous entry! I'm sorry everyone can't win!
Thanks for entering, Telaina! Yours was terrific too!
And congratulations to you for two “firsts” in this contest! I wish everyone could win!
Thanks Susanna, but the finalists' illustrations are out of the ball park! I have learned so much from this! Thank you for having this competition. I loved seeing everyone's take on the stories.
Chocolate ALWAYS helps. 🙂
Thank you Susanna !!! It was soooooo difficult to choose but I voted 👍
Thank you, Susanna. I'm so delighted she got to take part. She said she learned so much and is already looking forward to your next contest. 🙂
Spoken like a true kindred spirit 🙂
I'm so glad! 🙂
Thanks! 🙂
I'm glad if you learned from it, and it was fun to see all the different takes! 🙂
Thanks for voting, Genevieve! 🙂
Thanks for giving it the old college try 🙂
These were so much fun to look at! And hard to choose a favorite. I liked to concept of looking at these as though they were on the wall at B&N, and which ones would stand out. Having shopped with my kids, I know how important that can be! Good luck to everyone.
It is a good idea. Of course, ultimately, I take EVERYTHING down off the wall and read it, so I'm not a very good barometer. I guess I'd have to decide which one I'd pick FIRST! 🙂
Whoaa, made it to the final 6! So so so honored! Congrats to all finalists! Special thanks to the wonderful Susanna who made this contest possible, to Lisa Thiesing and Iza Trapani for the positive comments and everyone for checking out my work. Now excuse me, I'm going to vote for my favorite (so glad it's up there as well!)
Oh and Susanna, how about sharing the links to the bigger version of the pics? Would make it easier for the general audience to see the details of each image and cast a vote. Just an input. 🙂
Congratulations to the finalists…brilliant job 🙂
My favorite is in the finals, too. Hooray! The entries were all quite impressive. Sigh. Your contest has now made me want to take art lessons, Susanna!
What a talented group and a fun contest!!
I just wanted to say what a great time Iza and I had judging this contest. It was hard coming up with the final list of 6. There were so many great entries to choose from. Congratulations to everyone who entered! Everyone seemed to put a lot of thought and effort into their pieces. It was interesting to see the different takes on many of the same stories. To all who entered – “Keep up the good work!” To the finalists – “Your work is amazing! Congratulations!”
Sorry, Louis, I didn't think of that. I haven't run an illustration contest before and I was just thinking it would be easy for people to be able to see all the finalists in one place. I will add the links.
Louis, I have replaced the original images with larger versions. I know it's not perfect, but if I put links back to the blogs/sites that will ruin whatever anonymity we have, which I know is thin to begin with, but I'd like to try to preserve some. I kind of assumed that most people would have seen the originals during the contest and would really just need a little reminder of which was which to vote for. If this is unacceptable to the illustrators, I will try to think up a different system if I ever run an illustration contest again. My sincere apologies if you feel this is minimizing your art. That was most certainly not my intention!!!
These are all so amazing! I would read them all, but I did vote – it was difficult to choose just one.
Now it's a lot better, Susanna. Thanks!!
Please, no need for an apology… your system worked GREAT, and I personally do prefer to see all the images in one page. I just had some FB friends yesterday telling me that the images were to small for them to see the details so they a bit hesitated to vote – all's good now though, so no worries. 🙂
Holy Hunk-a-talent! Love.this.contest! Brilliant lady that you are, Susanna. Congrats to the finalists and thanks to all who entered! So fun to look at all of your awesome illustrations. These are all wonderful so voting wasn't easy, but one was so irresistible that I know I would “judge it by its cover” and grab it right off the shelves.
Oh, good. I'm glad! There may be a better way to do this. I'll have to think on it for if we do another illustration contest!
I know! Weren't they all amazing? It makes me wonder how editors ever choose for PBs! 🙂
I've had such fun with this! It's been amazing to see all the talent. I'm filing all these names away for the moment when I need art for something! 🙂
Thanks so much for being a judge, Lisa! We couldn't have done it without you!!! 🙂
So glad you've enjoyed it! Your story was very inspiring 🙂
It would make me want to take art lessons too except in my case there is no hope. I just want to be able to draw like that my magic 🙂
And congratulations to you, too, Catherine, for 3 gorgeous entries!!! 🙂
Just now I just happened to catch Colleen's post on Facebook (I'm almost NEVER on there!) which is how I found out finalists were picked! lol (My email didn't arrive yet, I guess!) Anyway, with all the wonderful illustrations, I am VERY complimented to have made it as a finalist. Honestly, with each additional piece of great artwork I saw, I didn't expect this. It had to be very difficult for the judges to eliminate so many entries, and seeing the ones here, even with it narrowed down, I'm going to have a difficult time deciding who to vote for of my favorites! I can only say it won't be for myself! lol Good luck to everyone! This has been a lot of fun, Susanna, and I'm excited to see how this turns out!
Lisa and Iza, thanks so much for taking the time to do this for Susanna and we artists. It had to be so difficult and I'm VERY flattered!
I know! I have two that really grab me and I need to come up with criteria to determine which one to pick! lol
I'm dieting so CHOCOLATE is not an option for me! Any other suggestions? lol
OK, I tried not to belabor it too much and drive myself crazy. I was able to pick one! lol 😀
Wonderful set of finalists! Voted. Best of luck everyone – it was tough to pick one. 🙂
Couldn't have said that any better, Laura 🙂
…and thanks for your talent and time, too, Iza 😀 This has been a lot of fun!
Yep, that's why the marriage between text and words has to be “just right” to make it the best it can be, for sure. And with that said, even though Uri Shulevitz's book WRITING WITH PICTURES is directed at illustrators, I most DEfinitely think PB authors (and any book authors which require illustrations) should read that book. In my opinion, it's one of the best out there on the subject!